Pardoned ex-offenders could get clean starts

Audrey did the crimes, paid the price and was pardoned by the state of South Carolina, but she still can’t shake off her old life.

“There is still a stigma,” she said. “The pardon is there, but the record is still there also.”

That’s why Audrey has been following state legislation that she hopes will let her shed her criminal history once and for all.

“I get so depressed,” said the Pee Dee woman, 45, in an email.

“My criminal past is way behind me, but I am still paying for it. Yes, I did the crime, but how much longer do I have to pay for it?”

Audrey was convicted six times from 1996-2004 for crimes ranging from possession with intent to distribute marijuana to simple assault to making a false insurance claim, according to her certificate of pardon.

Her pardon was granted in February of last year after the routine process of paying the $100 fee and presenting letters of reference to S.C. Board of Paroles and Pardons.

She is not the only one tracking the legislation and hoping for its passage.

“This bill would definitely free a lot of people, including my son, who made mistakes early in their lives,” said another woman who emailed a reporter this month.

Audrey wondered what good a pardon does, if her record still follows her name everywhere?

“What a pardon does is it reestablishes your civil rights, for instance a right to buy a gun,” said Jeff Moore, executive director of the S.C. Sheriffs’ Association, which is wary of the bill’s potential effects.

“You’ve got to be very careful when we’re talking about pardons,” he said.

The bill, H. 3127, would allow someone who received a pardon to seek an expungement of arrest and conviction records. People who had committed a sex crime or one within a category of violent crimes, including murder, robbery and others, would not qualify, however.

The bill was approved 90-0 by the S.C. House and begins the committee process in the Senate when lawmakers return in January.

David Ross, executive director of the S.C. Commission on Prosecution Coordination, said the bill’s scope is too broad, which he says could open the door to expungements for a wide array of ex-offenders.

“I think there will be some more discussions between now and before the Legislature starts,” he said.

Ross outlined another objection: People who have already received a pardon from the state board would be eligible for an expungement, a consequence that the board would not have considered at the time they made the decision to issue a pardon.

In 2008, the most recent year available from the state agency, 65 percent of the 718 applications for pardons were granted by the board.

“They look at the totality of the person’s life since their sentence was served and then make a decision,” said Peter O’Boyle, spokesman for the S.C. Department of Probation, Parole and Pardon Services.

Other states, including Georgia, operate similarly to South Carolina by not erasing the crime from the offender’s record.

That creates a class of unemployable people, said bill sponsor Rep. Todd Rutherford, D-Columbia, in April when the bill was approved by the House Judiciary Committee.

“Right now if you go to McDonald’s (for a job), they’re pulling a rap sheet,” the lawmaker had told the committee.

“And when they pull a rap sheet, all South Carolina does is put ‘pardon’ beside (the offense). But that doesn’t mean anything to people at McDonald’s. All they see is this guy was convicted of forgery 20 years ago.”

The debate comes at a time when high unemployment allows employers to disqualify an applicant for a growing number of official and unofficial reasons — poor credit, a previously higher salary, or for simply being unemployed.

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